Testimonial Essay _  Risako Yanagase from Tokyo Institute of Technology

     What made you participate in the program?

     The surface reason why I joined this is I can get a lot of support from KAIST and Tokyo Tech to study abroad. And I’m sorry to tell this, but honestly, I chose this KAIST CAMPUS Asia program mainly because I did not have the courage to study abroad in countries far from Japan longer than 1 term. Before this program, I have never studied abroad partly because of COVID-19. I had felt that I should study abroad at least once in student hood, but at the same time I had been scared of exposing myself to a different world. Therefore, I had escaped from what I should do by COVID. When I heard the limitation of studying abroad being lessened, I thought I had to join some summer program for studying abroad.

However, soon after I visited here, my mindset completely changed. I decided to experience as many things as I can, and to talk to a lot of people to find some hits for what I want to do in the future.

What is the program about?  What did you learn from the program?

     This program is mainly about research, so I had been in AT Lab in STP. At first, I planned to set the research theme “how should we do to apply companion robots to care home in more comfortable way?”, but a friend in STP helped me finding better theme which I am truly interested in. He told me to do brainstorming to make much more innovative ideas. I’ve already done kinds of brainstorming in classes in Tokyo Tech, but I had never come up with doing that in creating research theme. I had a lot of stimulations from my friends through this program.

I also had opportunities to take a look at myself. I had been interested in the conflict between being kind to a minority in the society and pursuing efficiency of the society since a few years before, though I had never been in an apparent minority before coming here. However, since I have been completely in the minority in KAIST, I understand people in a minority’s feelings now.
I often felt nervous especially when visiting somewhere new, but if the people there welcomed me, I always got relieved. Especially in terms of language difference, my mind completely changed. Before coming here, my viewpoint had been so closed that I had not understood why they came to Japan without learning Japanese. The club I join in Tokyo Tech has international members, and some of them cannot speak Japanese. However, I did the same thing as they had done. I had not had enough time to learn basic conversation in Korean but tried to survive in Korea. Thanks to the people around me speaking English, I survived and felt comfortable in Korea. I felt sorry for having negative feelings to exchange students who cannot speak Japanese.
Also, before this program, I had thought talking Japanese with Japanese friends in front of foreigners does not matter considering the efficiency of information exchange, but it was wrong. In my experience, I felt lonely when people around me started to talk in Korean, which I do not understand.

Another thing I learned through this program is the way to get along with people. Since I did not have any particular hobbies, I wondered what to say in the self-introduction. However, in order to attract people in the first meeting, I noticed I have to say something unique and make a strong identity. Therefore, I tried to say “I love walking and bakeries! Let me know good bakeries around the campus.” every time I introduce myself. To be honest, I liked walking and bakeries but not so much as hobbies. But this trial made a big success when talking to people. I guess people memorize me as “an undergraduate bakery girl from Japan who walks a lot”. I will continue to use the way to attract people even after going back to Japan.

    What did you like most about the program?

     I like everything about the program, but especially I really like the supporters’ kindness. I often hear my friends saying that they cannot get warm support from program staff. However, in this program, I have received a lot of kindness from them. They cared our lives in KAIST and talked to us a lot. Thank you for your favor! I also like the daytrip to Jeonju. I wore Hanbok and fake hair, which is the most surprising, and took a lot of pictures. A piece of photo taken by instax must be one of my treasures.

     How do you think your experience in this program will affect your future studies and career?

     I experienced a lot of precious things related to research, cultural exchange, my dream, and some others. Through these experiences, I found hints to choose my way in the future.
I have been in AT Lab, which mainly focus on policy making. I really enjoyed it, but I found this should not be my future major in Tokyo Tech. I found that I am rather interested in bottom-up way, not top-down way like policy making. Therefore, I visited other labs in the School of Industrial Design and talk to the people there, and finally I realized that I should do research about designs with technology. Since my future major had not been decided yet, this experience gave me a big influence.